Quote:
Originally Posted by Scharbag
So, IMHO, having 5 forward gears is plenty for 99.99999% of driving situations. This gear count used to work back when high strung engines put out 200HP. Now, we have cars with 400+ HP and we need 6 and 7 speed transmissions?
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You're looking at it from quite a US point of view.
However BMW's are german cars.
I dont know if you've ever been to Germany, but cruising on the autobahn at 100-120mph for longer stretches is quite normal, especially in the more rural areas and with a high performance car.
And then with the modern engines that provide huge amounts of torque its far better for: a-comfort, b-fuel economy/emissions output and c-longevity of the engine etc if rpm's are lower.
If you would put that gearing over 5 gears, that would massively reduce performance.
So for the slow us style of driving that many gears might not be as necessary as the high speed driving we do in Europe, where a US gallon of fuel can cost up to $8,- (yes thats another thing that differs...).
Also cars and car manufacturers have to meet strickt emission goals; putting in a 5 speed would mean bmw wouldnt even be allowed to produce an m3 or m5.
Those are the reasons why the went from 4 to 5 to 6 and next 7 gears (automatics are already up to 10)